Day 108

Yesterday was my third day in a row on the road, and a good one. I walked eight miles and averaged just under 16 minutes a mile.

It was a mid-morning walk in strangely warm weather, given the time of year and the overcast conditions. At that time of day, the sidewalks pretty much belong to healthy retirees, moving at a comfortable pace, smiling as you pass them.

I am retired myself, but I have been reluctant to embrace the label “retiree.” Don’t get me wrong - if I can get ten percent off my tab at Denny’s for being a senior citizen, I’ll claim it, but I don’t think of myself as being in that demographic yet.

Over dinner at a Thai restaurant tonight, I told Lisa why I wasn’t there yet.

“I feel too good to be this old,” I said. “I keep expecting to start getting lumbago, or sore hips, or the Heartbreak of Psoriasis. But I move fine, and the gray in my beard doesn’t bother me.”

She nodded. “Me too. I feel more like … I don’t know, like mid-thirties,” she said.

So do I. I know I’m not - my kids and my nephew Andrew make sure that I don’t forget my age - but my mind feels clear and agile, my disposition still sunny and optimistic, like I’ve felt since my salad days.

Lisa threw some cold water on my attitude, however.  

“You know we’re only five years or so until things start going south, right?”

Yeah, I guess. But when we got home tonight, she started playing old songs by classic acts - the Brothers Johnson, Boz Scaggs (such a great name), Phil Collins - and we rocked out like we were kids.

Anyway, the walk yesterday was uneventful - two hours wandering my neighborhood, listening to the new Garrison Keillor novel (he has a very companionable voice for a long walk, and the book is about mortality and aging, which seemed appropriate), interrupted periodically by phone calls with my clients.

When I got to almost eight miles, I looked at my Apple Watch and saw that my pace was 16:01. Not today, I thought, and I ran the rest of the way in, lowering my average to 15:58. Ha!